Poet Mark Wunderlich joins host Brian Blanchfield for an episode of contemporary poetry that reanimates the lost or long past or that assembles present experience from historical material and received knowledge. Selections from Lucie Brock-Broido, Khadijah Queen, Suzanne Wise, Jericho Brown, Thomas James, Sarah Messer, and Mary Jo Bang.
With musical selections by Alexandrina, Pauline Easy, The Kendalls, Raury, and more.
Sarah Messer | “My Life as a Puritan Bedpost,” Dress Made of Mice. Black Lawrence Press, 2016.
Orlando White | “Questia,” Bone Light. Nightboat Books, 2009.
Jericho Brown | “1 Corinthians 13: 11,” The New Testament. Copper Canyon Press, 2014.
Thomas James | “Mummy of a Lady Named Jemutesonekh XXI Dynasty,” Letters to a Stranger. Persea Books, 1973.
Lucie Brock-Broido | “Domestic Mysticism,” A Hunger. Knopf, 1988.
Khadijah Queen | “Pre-diagnosis,” “Sonnet,” and “San Joaquin Valley,” Fearful Beloved. Argos Books, 2015.
Mary Jo Bang | “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus,” Elegy. Graywolf, 2009.
Suzanne Wise | “What There Is There,” Kingdom of the Subjunctive. Alice James Books, 2002.
SPEEDWAY & SWAN is a fortnightly one-hour free-format radio program that presents contemporary poetry against a context of variously compatible and offbeat musical selections. Culling from the exceptional libraries of his partners, the University of Arizona Poetry Center and KXCI 91.3 Tucson Community Radio, creator and host Brian Blanchfield is joined in conversation each episode by a rotating guest co-host who brings to the hour a selection of poetry from his or her personal canon, which, along with the freshest and best from the "new shelves," they read live.
Each show also features a recorded performance from Voca, the Poetry Center's audio archive of its legendary poetry readings since 1963. SPEEDWAY & SWAN represents a partnership between the Poetry Center, which will archive the show in listenable format with an annotated playlist, and KXCI, where the show streams live.
Since 1983, KXCI 91.3 FM has been committed to connecting Tucson and Southern Arizona to one another and to the world with informative, engaging, and creative community-based radio programming.
Brian Blanchfield is a poet and writer whose two books of poetry, Not Even Then and A Several World, have won him The James Laughlin Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, and recognition as longlist finalist for the National Book Award. A poetry editor of Fence, he teaches creative writing at the University of Arizona and runs the downtown Tucson reading series Intermezzo. Contact: speedwayandswan@gmail.com.